Hi folks! Kev “Kota” Hayman here. I’m the official “biographer guy” here at the Scienteers. As such I figured it would be a good idea to, instead of bios, go with interviews of each of the Scienteers. I figured it would be a good idea to start with the boss himself, Dave Davis. And so, let’s begin. (more…)

I want to get in a lot more sketching practice. So please suggest something for me to draw and post here.There are only ten slots open right now. Just about anything goes (within reason). So comment on this post, one request per comment, one request per person. I will be able to view IPs, so no cheating, neh?

There are ten additional slots at my DeviantART page. This will give me a grand-total of twenty sketches.

That was a couple of days ago, meaning there is one slot left on my site if someone wishes to take it. I’ll be posting the sketches on my site and on my dA, so keep an eye out!

Yes, that was quite a shameless plug on my part, but I think that’s perfectly fair.

No, I’m not talking about what people generally would talk about when it comes to Zuda, how they select comics to run on the site, the current rotation of comics seeking attention, or any of those types of things. No. I am going to rant about the technical aspects of the site and why their comic-browser is killing my interest in their site.

I don’t think there is nearly enough criticism of Zuda’s method for displaying comics. The flash player is absolutely terrible and kind of implies that the people behind it have no idea how important usability and simple navigation is to a webcomic site. Why is the webcomic site model virtually unchanged across so many webcomics? It’s because it’s a good model, functional, and the best we have. Zuda’s method is totally against what webcomics should be.

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Every Saturday from 5PM Pacific Standard Time until “question mark” I’ll hook up my camera and mic and draw live and chat with viewers. So go ahead and bookmark hpkomic’s comic-factory and check it out this Saturday. I’ll be glad to talk about stuff with you guys as I doodle.

Special thanks to my Nightgig peeps for informing me of this Tooncasting thing. If you’re not listening to the Gigcast, you’re missing out. As a bonus, that same episode features an interview with our friend David Gallaher.

Oh yeah, and a bonus, some pencils to my next comic page.

Turns out I felt compelled to create my own font for Cosmic Dash. You won’t see it on this page, but you probably will on the next. So far, version 1.0 is up and done, and here is a preview image.

I need beta-testers to try out my new font. Click the image below for more details and how to get the font for testing.

Let me know what you guys think of it.

Well, you can see that hpkomics.com will be going through some changes. It’s becoming a general news site and portfolio for myself. Cosmic Dash meanwhile is getting it’s own site with some interesting features planned out for it.

This site will still also feature sketchbook updates, however I cleared out most of the old batch of them because they were mostly concerning Cosmic Dash related stuff, the development of the project will remain on it’s own site, but generalized sketches from said project are fair game.

Don’t know if that made much sense, but oh well.

That being said, I’m actually not going to be updating the comic this week. I have some things that need to be done, however once those things are taken care of, I’ll jump right back in.

Let’s catch up with the mailbag, shall we?

First off, a bit of upsetting news from our buddy over at D4K.

On June 15th, I was robbed, I lost over 7k worth of electronics, some of
which are my computers, scanners, iMac, etc.  All of those things are what
I use to do my podcast and my webcomic, relying on using scarce internet
access once a week until I can get a more stable source.

After discussing it with some friends, I am now currently offering free
sketches for $5.00.  All money donated will get a sketch, while I am also
taking donations via paypal as per the donate button on dribbleforkids.com, I am also accepting check and money order, along with a return
address, to:

D4K Studios
Attention: Sketch
PO Box 155
West Jefferson, OH 43162

Any money at all is extremely beneficial, so if you could please please
please get this out, I’d greatly appreciate it.

So please help the guy out! Totally crappy situation.

In other news, have you seen the conclusion to HIGH MOON? We’ve been keeping track of the comic, and we naturally like to see our news investments through, up to the end, so be sure to check it out.

Speaking of Dave (one of the guys behind HIGH MOON), you should check out his Newsarama guest column, I (heart) Webcomics.

As for the lateness in news, don’t worry. I’ll be making sure it won’t happen again. We’re also got a few other scienteer things in the background that are going on.

On a more personal note, I lost my archive of comics and PSDs! So my own webcomic is on an extended break at this point. I’ll make sure to keep people informed of what happens at the site.